Coco and Igor

Deb 7 Me 7

We saw the 2008 TV movie "Coco Chanel" and we liked 2009's "Coco Before Chanel" and so how could we miss the 2010 installation, "Coco and Igor". This seemed like a pretty specialized topic with limited appeal but was really a good flick. The main figures are Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. Some big names. Diaghilev and Nijinski from the Ballet Russe were featured as they depicted the great classical music riot. I love the idea of a classical music riot.

I imagine that art directors live for this kind of project. All the details, the drapes, furniture, clothes, cars, buildings were all superbly detailed. And this is such an important element to understanding her position. She was a major contributor to style, fashion and the change of what was acceptable socially. Between the wars, from 1917ish to the early 1940s she rocked Europe. Then again after the big war in the 1950s she kicked America's fashionable ass with styles that are still contemporary. And that was a neat thing in this film, there was a scene showing her shop in Paris, with the now-familiar Chanel logo out front. The stone streets and worn buildings were so primitive looking, and here's this "look". It defines what we call contemporary.

So as a movie it was pretty neat. It was a great interpretation of the changes that were going on in the early 20th century. But the premise of the movie, an affair between Coco and Igor, is just based on rumor, there's no evidence they ever hooked up romantically. someone just made up how they thought it could have happened. So it's sort of a Oliver Stone thing. Really well done and based on lies. But somehow this wasn't offensive like Stone's films, it was entertaining. It kept me going all the way through, although at a snails pace, Coco's breakaway dress perked me up after a dry spell.

Good movie if you like fictionalized biopics about this period of time.